Excel Parking Services - Siddals Road car park Derby -(I WON!)

Coupon-mad

Ok so you can't use the IPC CoP, so stay silent on that and just talk about the CPRs and the fact that silence from the intended recipient of 3 or 4 letters sent to a (notoriously very unreliable) DVLA database 'vehicle' address is reason to believe that the Defendant may not live there.

The Defendant avers that there is no justifiable reason for a serial litigator like a parking operator (who is indisputably aware how out of date DVLA vehicle keeper addresses can be now that  annual paper update applications for physical tax discs are no longer used) not to take any steps to check it at LBC stage.

it would have cost them just 29 pence for an Experian or similar instant online bulk 'soft trace'. This was identified by the Government as a serious example of rogue conduct as the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 made its way through Parliament. To address this, the new incoming Statutory Code of Practice from the DLUHC (currently stalled but only to iron out industry objections specifically ring-fenced about parking charge levels only) was published in February 2022 and in order to avoid unfair CCJs, a soft trace is mandatory, as it always has been for AOS members of the British Parking Association.

It is almost as if this serial litigator is content to collect 90% of judgments in default (MoJ quarterly statistics confirm that 90% of small value Moneyclaim judgments are 'by default' and parking claims are a particular problem).

Thus a rogue parking operator avoids any hearing or further fees and then can sit on their hands and wait for exaggerated money to roll in from horrified Defendants who only learn about these stealth CCJs later down the line and are left with the stark choice of paying a typically inflated £250-£300 to the parking firm to mark the CCJ satisfied, or to apply to set aside the unjust CCJ, at a similar up front cost in terms of the £275 application fee.

MysticDad

Set aside is being heard this week. I would not be surprised if the Claimant's Rep doesn't turn up, given train disruption.  I anticipate it'll be set aside with costs reserved (but courts are unpredictable!). I'll let you know how I get on. 

Just thought I'd share a few reflections in the meantime:

I have a background in Consumer Law, so I'm far better equipped than most to deal with this type of claim.  Having said that I've found it incredibly difficult and confusing so it's beyond me how the average person could be expected to deal with these sorts of claims.  The steps I had to go through and the challenges I faced include:

1) Receipt of letter from debt collector: Working out what powers they had and what stage the debt was at. They failed to answer the phone, and gave limited information by email which made it difficult to obtain details about the original claim. I had to do some detective work to identify who the claimant was and what it related to. Just receiving a letter from a company like DCBL would be very scary for many people, and I'm sure many would just pay up regardless of whether the claim had merit. I'm sure the majority of people would (wrongly) assume that paying up would leave them with an entirely clean credit record.

2) Dialogue with the Claimant/Legal Reps: They were dismissive, acted like the whole thing was a done deal, and pushed me to pay up.  They failed to properly respond to my reasonable questions, which made it impossible for me to establish key facts critical in allowing me to determine whether I had strong grounds to contest the claim.

3) Subject Access Requests were not dealt with properly. I was specific about what information I wanted (in rel to the payment system) and it was not provided. The SAR response made no mention of why the information wasn't provided.

4) When I requested the order be set aside they refused without giving reason, which felt to me to be a deliberate tactic to dissuade me from challenging the claim (because this resulted in me having to pay £275 for a set aside application, which was higher than the amount on the CCJ).

5) Identifying the relevant code of practice (in this case IPC) and the relevance of the Gov Private Parking Code.  I think many consumers would wrongly believe that the IPC code was statutory, when in fact it's a (rather shoddy) private code with very limited scope.

6) Working out what a Set Aside application is, how to apply for one online, how to pay the court, how to format a witness statement, defence and order.  None of this is straightforward and there is little guidance.  I anticipate that a lot of Defendants submit some very poorly worded statements and just put a few words in the box on the claim form.  I expect/hope that judges are forgiving and don't expect litigants in person to do everything correctly.

7) Identifying what the key points to address are in accordance with CPR, the correct legal arguments relevant to the case and presenting them in an organised, structured fashion. Not for the faint hearted.

8) The behaviour of the Claimant's legal reps in trying to con me into a last minute consent order with no order as to costs. Really bad form: "it's in your best interests" they said!

9) The Claimant's witness statement: I'm gobsmacked at how poor it is: At first glance it looks professional, but after pulling it apart it's very poor.  As a joe bloggs without access to Case Law it's very hard to work out what is/is not relevant.

I've found this forum and some other online resources very helpful - to the extent that I don't think I would have been able to navigate this process without it.

My overall feeling is that going through all this isn't really worth it (factoring in the time taken and the increased financial risk). However, I'm stubborn and I don't like to set companies get away with bad practices.

Coupon-mad

Agreed.  It needs to stop, doesn't it?

With Consumer Law experience and the case study story below to recount about what the so-called DRA Solicitors really do when they speak to victims, your voice will be a vital addition, when the final DLUHC Public Consultation opens in a few weeks' time:

"Dialogue with the Claimant/Legal Reps: They were dismissive, acted like the whole thing was a done deal, and pushed me to pay up.  They failed to properly respond to my reasonable questions, which made it impossible for me to establish key facts critical in allowing me to determine whether I had strong grounds to contest the claim."

MysticDad

I won! Judge set aside under 13(2).  Claimant to pay costs including my travel expenses and loss of earnings. Total £385.90. (although Judge was not interested in my time taken costs in preparing my defence, and I was happy enough not to push that).

Judge stated that the claim had not been properly served because it had been sent to my old address (based on DVLA at the time) and that they had not made any efforts to validate this address when they had no response to the six letters they sent.

Judge also made it clear that in the alternate he would have been content to set aside under 13(3) because there was clearly prospects of successfully defending the claim.

What I hadn't anticipated was the weight that the judge gave to the fact that the claim was based on "parking without displaying a valid ticket/permit". The Judge said that because the Claimant offered the option of paying through an App (which is what I did), there was no way that I could have displayed a ticket/permit.  Therefore the claim falls on that basis alone.  He said that if the Claimant wished to proceed with the claim then it would certainly be necessary to apply to the court to have the claim amended. He also inferred that the prospects of an amended claim succeeding appeared to be poor.

The legal rep acting on behalf of Elms was a nice bloke. Afterwards he commented that I was very well prepared and had clearly done my research.  He also mentioned to me that he doesn't like parking ticket cases!

Grizebeck

MysticDad said:

I won! Judge set aside under 13(2).  Claimant to pay costs including my travel expenses and loss of earnings. Total £385.90. (although Judge was not interested in my time taken costs in preparing my defence, and I was happy enough not to push that).

Judge stated that the claim had not been properly served because it had been sent to my old address (based on DVLA at the time) and that they had not made any efforts to validate this address when they had no response to the six letters they sent.

Judge also made it clear that in the alternate he would have been content to set aside under 13(3) because there was clearly prospects of successfully defending the claim.

What I hadn't anticipated was the weight that the judge gave to the fact that the claim was based on "parking without displaying a valid ticket/permit". The Judge said that because the Claimant offered the option of paying through an App (which is what I did), there was no way that I could have displayed a ticket/permit.  Therefore the claim falls on that basis alone.  He said that if the Claimant wished to proceed with the claim then it would certainly be necessary to apply to the court to have the claim amended. He also inferred that the prospects of an amended claim succeeding appeared to be poor.

The legal rep acting on behalf of Elms was a nice bloke. Afterwards he commented that I was very well prepared and had clearly done my research.  He also mentioned to me that he doesn't like parking ticket cases!

Good Result!, on most occasions i find the reps actually quite decent people to have a chat to.  They really don't the case work they get given for such stuff as its often very poor

Umkomaas

What a clued-in Judge, and very well done @MysticDad on getting the successful set aside, and especially having the Judge comment that 13(3) would have done it too and telling the Claimant that even if they wish to reinstate the claim, the prospects of success are poor. 

The legal rep acting on behalf of Elms was a nice bloke. Afterwards he commented that I was very well prepared and had clearly done my research.  He also mentioned to me that he doesn't like parking ticket cases! 

Legal advocates are often reported as coming over as pleasant individuals. It's small wonder he doesn't like parking tickets, because I expect if advocates lose cases, they might well come in for some haranguing from aggressive PPC directors!

Coupon-mad

Do you think (based on the summing up) that the written order of the Judge will dismiss the claim unless the Claimant successfully applies for permission to amend, or is the Judge still letting it progress to its eventual doom, and requiring you to defend within 14 days?

MysticDad

I am not sure. I think the former. 

Coupon-mad

We'll see! The order will arrive this month.

But if you were being expected to put in a defence within 14 days, I think the Judge would have made that clear.  So probably it is all over, bar the shouting.

But please don't disappear...

We sincerely hope that you are au fait with the need to respond to the final Government Public Consultation? Hopefully - amongst all the political disruption - it will be open later this year.

We all need to ram the nail in the coffin of the false £70 'DRA fee' add-on, that actually funds the court claim and toxic CCJ culture, as well as the DRA gaslighting of people.

Just checking you are among those ready to respond to the questions as you have personal experience of how this crap feels?

Please come back here when it opens, and you can make sure you don't miss the Consultation:

If you are not a regular reader, to be alerted you'll need to bookmark the thread by MSE_JC at the top of the forum and enable (on your profile) email alerts for bookmarked threads.

Then join us when the Consultation opens.

Sorry if you knew all this already - I had no time to check back through the thread.

MysticDad

Yes I'll definitely be responding to the consultation. 👍